Unabridged Audiobook
This memoir is interesting for two reasons. One is that the author was a night fighter pilot from the earliest stages of the war to the very end. Hence the reader gets the “feel” of night fighter fighting throughout the entire war, from the early pre-airborne radar days when enemy bombers had to basically be found through the use of eyeballs (even though ground radar directed night fighters to the general area bombers were at) through the latest days when the most advanced airborne radars were used. Hence the reader learns of how tactics and aircraft changed throughout war. This also includes the periods when the use of “window” temporarily blinded German radar and tactics had to change accordingly (i.e., basically the use of “wild boar” tactics where night fighters concentrated near cities where search lights could illuminate bombers, as in the early pre-airborne radar days). The reader also learns how later technologies (i.e., backward looking warning radars) influenced combat when evading and fighting enemy night flyers. The reader not only gains this from reading the book but also a feeling of being there. The author describes his first-hand experiences very vividly. From experiencing St. Elmo’s fire, through flying blind and hunting enemy bombers (through a variety of tactics as the war progressed, as described above), encounters with very bad weather and friendly flak fire, the reader feels as if he is sitting next to the author. The audiobook itself is very well read.
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